The nature of mercy

...by his one oblation of himself once offered a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

Ministers of the gospel can then, with full authority, declare pardon and absolution, not because these words enact pardon and absolution, but because pardon and absolution have been made by God himself, on the cross of Jesus Christ.

And there is no better way to begin the gathering of people seeking God than to be reminded of how it is that we come to gather, and what sort of people we happen to be. We are not worthy, in Cranmer's anthropology, so much as to gather up the crumbs from under God's table.

This is not an abject self-loathing, designed to fill us with guilt, and send us running to the nearest life coach.

This is finally someone being honest with us. There is a searing realism in the Book of Common Prayer that simply clears away every human pretention. And yet it does so without crushing us, because the God who we approach, who is far holier than the Indonesian president, and more righteous than the Australian public, and is a far more reliable judge than both of these, is also the one whose character is to have mercy.